For Christmas we made a super valuable offer to our Thrive Suite customers. We organized a Conversion X-mas contest that allowed them to win a complete landing page make-over. This included a new custom design made by our designers and marketing and copy writing advice from the marketing team.
Hundreds of Thrive Suite customers sent in their pages and 5 of them got picked to get marketing and design advice to increase their conversions.
Today we're showing you the before and after we did for our first winner. This landing page is a lead generation landing page.
Watching what we did for this landing page will surely give you some inspiration on how to improve yours! Let's dive right in.
More...
Before...
The landing page we are looking at today is a lead generation landing page for a free Etsy SEO email course created by Maayan from Living Waters Makers.
this is what the page looked like before our makeover:
The original lead generation landing page that Maayan sent in.
What We Liked:
Room For Improvement:
And After
And this is how the landing page looks after our complete make-over:
The new version of the Etsy SEO course landing page
The most obvious change is undoubtedly the design, but there is much more going on than just making it "look pretty".
Each of the changes has been made with conversions in mind. Keep on reading to find out
- Why we choose to layout this page the way we did.
- Why it can increase sign-ups.
- And how you can do the same on your lead generation pages.
Why These Changes?
Above the Fold = Prime Real Estate
If you've been reading about good practices for web design, chances are you've come across this term: Above the fold.
This means the area on the top of your page that a visitor can see without scrolling. This is prime real estate on your page and you want to make sure the most important conversion elements are visible here.
That's why we've added an opt-in form in the above the fold area. If someone arrives on this page, reads the title and is already convinced this is what they are looking for, let them subscribe immediately without having to scroll down.
TAKEAWAY
Open your landing page and look at it without scrolling down. Is the most important information readily available? Can your visitor convert right there and then?
If not, add a lead generation element or a buy now button in the above the fold area.
Take Advantage of Social Proof
On the original page, Maayan was already using Thrive Ovation to showcase some really good testimonials.
The testimonials show off real results people got after following the course, which will convince skeptical visitors this free email course is the real deal.
We simply picked another template (that's not a slider) and added one of the testimonials right on top of the page so that as soon as a visitors starts scrolling down, they see this social proof.
If you have great testimonials, you should not be hiding them on the bottom of the page. And if you don't have (good) testimonials yet, check out our free Thrive University course on how to get them on auto-pilot.
TAKEAWAY
Collect testimonials, even for your free offers, and display them in different spots on your landing page. A great place to display a testimonial is right next to your conversion element. This allows your visitor to read the testimonial and convert without having to scroll.
Design to Stand Out
Even the best copy gets lost in a wall of text. There are different ways to make the most important words on your page stand out (such as using headings, content boxes, etc.) but the right design can also really make a difference.
On this page, we broke up the wall of text in a checkered layout and added several "highlighted" elements to guide the eye.
If you're not a designer, don't worry. You can use one of the 200+ landing page templates included in Thrive Architect (these already use layout and highlights to emphasize important parts of your pages) and you can quickly learn the secret design code.
TAKEAWAY
Go over your landing page and look for places where there is a lot of text. Try breaking up this text:
- Use a column layout and an image or icon.
- Pick the most important words and highlight them.
- Keep only what's really essential.
In-Depth Geek-Out
Want to see an in-depth look at this page and a "thinking out loud" discussion of all the details and considerations that went into this makeover? Check out this video of the livestream we did:
UPDATE
We just heard from Maayan who tested the before and after landing pages against each other. Here's what she had to say...
"
I'm happy to report that over the last two weeks (about the same time period I've measured the previous conversion rate) my conversion rate doubled - from 26% before the redesign to 53.6%.
Thanks again, you guys did a marvelous job!
Maayan - Etsy SEO Challenge
Now It's Your Turn
What do you think of this makeover? What takeaway will you apply to your own landing page?
Let me know in the comments below!
That’s a really cool and informative makeover, love it. And Kudos to Maayan for letting us take a look.
What I’ll takeaway is don’t go small. Use with those big block images to separate the sections. The Subheads are a great way to use benefit driven phrases… and get my ovation plugin working properly.
Looking forward to applying and seeing more.
Cheers Hanne & Co
Hi Tony,
Thanks and glad to see you got some actionable takeaways from this!
Awesome job!
Thanks Hoya
Very nice makeover. The redesigned page looks a lot better and more professional. Love it!
Hi Barabara, that’s the magic of having a designer 🙂 But that’s also the advantage of our 200+ templates, they have all been made by our design team and with conversions in mind!
Nice job Hanne, as usual. So, when will be seeing the a/b test results? 🙂
Hi Randy,
Now that is out of our hands, Mayaan has to decide whether or not she wants to A/B test this (but I really hope she will and will share her results!)
Thanks Hanne. I am still learning and this was very insightful.
Thanks Valerie, happy to hear!
Very beautiful remake. Makes me wish my site was one of the chosen few. Thanks Hanne!
Hi John, unfortunately we had to limit the winners if not we would be doing this all day rather than providing you guys with new templates and plugins 😉
And Thrive Optimize – AB Testing for WordPress allows you to measure the benefit of these excellent changes with a simple A/B test ; -)
I couldn’t have said it any better 😉
Wow, what a difference your makeover made! I would love to have seen HOW your designer/s actually BUILT the page (using – I assume – Architect) so that I can better understand HOW to create something similar (with my own variations obviously). I’m still struggling with getting the best from Architect…
Hi Eran,
So I was actually the one building the page this time 😉 If you like that kind of content, have a look at our Landing Page from Scratch Series where we show you how to build a full landing page starting from a blank template.
Awesome & thanks Hanne! I appreciate that recommendation. I will definitely check them out. 🙂
I want you to do a landing page for me. That’s awesome – the change is so outstanding.
Hahahah thanks 🙂
Great!
Thanks Sande
It’s great of course but I’m curious, why is there no navigation menu?
Hi Kevin,
This is a landing page, on a landing page you want only one conversion goal (in this case signing up). Especially when you send paid traffic to your lead generation pages, you do not want to have people browse around.
You can learn all about landing pages in our beginners’ guide to landing pages.
Wow – great video and explanation of what was done to improve the page. Please share the A/B testing results and the impact on the CTA signup rate.
Hi Martin,
Mayaan promised us to keep us in the loop so hopefully we’ll be able to do a follow-up post about the results.
is the template available?
Hi Björn, no this template is not available. This was a custom design we did as a price for winning the contest.
really cool , always loved thrive , now is much more better , congrats!
Thanks Diego!
The final page is gorgeous! I really appreciate all your tutorials — keep it up and thank you!
Thanks Maureen, we’ll keep them coming!
Hanne – thank you – I watched this makeover after creating a landing page … now back to my page to adjust elements = yey!
Ah – improvements … ))smiles
Good to hear you got some actionable insights Stephen!
This is great, I love that you are taking real pages and making them over. Very useful info and really cool to see what other members are doing. I look forward to seeing what happens with the other winners. Also, Hanne, something about the way you talk makes it really nice to listen to you. Thanks for the great content!
Thanks David
This video and post is so helpful, thank you Hanne. My design skills aren’t that great but the information here will definitely help me improve.
Happy to hear that Ramesh!
Excellent. Will apply this to my pages and let my clients know. Thank you so much.
You’re welcome Alan
Looks great but also super elaborate, I kept asking myself: yes but what would happen if she just used one of those very minimalist text-only pages Shane always talks about in the webinars?
I think this would be a great case study for an A/B test if the owner is amenable. Minimalist vs. Elaborate.
Would be an interesting test indeed 🙂
LOVE this. Thank you, Hanne. I can’t wait to get started with Thrive Themes!
Thanks Adam!
Hi Hannah,
Really enjoy all your emails and hints. Really enjoyed watching this most recent one and would love your advice on my landing page oneday 🙂
Hi Mark,
Happy that you liked this! And if you’re a member you can submit your site or landing page for review 🙂